What The Heart Can't Forget
by April29Roses
Summary: For your tender consideration, dear readers, a short story about Guinevere having a very difficult day and the mysteries of love.


A/N: This poured out of me this morning like a gift. I hope you will enjoy.

Guinevere shifted. Her fngers carressing the impossibly smooth fabric. The glow of the morning snuck thrugh the heavy curtains, glowing golden in shafts of ligh. She sighed as she turned over, wishing once again that it wasn't morning...again.

As she rose from the bed, she slipped a robe over her nightdress, glancing briefly at the note by her bed, where the schedule of her day reminded her of her duties as Queen. She looked at it, but it slipped listlessly from her fingers as her attention drifted to the noise outside her window. Knowing that she shouldn't, she still walked over to the window, pulling back the covering, struggling a little because of her small stature. She looked out on the training field below. The knights were milling about, getting ready for their morning training. Arthur wasn't there. She closed her eyes, whispering the mantra in her own mind silently. "Don't go there, Gwen. Don't go there." Shaking her head, she turned from the window.

She took a deep breath. Behind the dressing screen, her clothes were already laid out carefully. As she began to pull her nightdress off, it caught on her hand and she tugged impatiently. It was caught on her ring, so she swiftly untangled the delicate fabric as she finally slipped it over her head and dropped it to the floor. The ring caught the light. Arthur's ring.

Tears unaccountably clogged her throat, stinging her eyes. She blinked them back almost automatically, and started to pick up her dress, but it dropped from her fingers, and she sank to her knees. Arthur.

Guinevere's tears were falling faster now, slipping down her cheeks almost with a will of their own. Where had they come from, she wondered. Arthur had been gone at least a year, a long miserable lonely year, and she had wept so much that she wondered that her heart could still find the strength to cry. Most of the time, she felt so tired, so worn out by the burden of her loss of Arthur, that even the endless well of her tears had finally run dry. She knew she had things to do, but her tears would not abate.

Arthur. She saw his eyes, brilliantly blue and sleepy in the morning, with the soft expression she had loved, for so very few people saw it. Sunk in her memories, she could still see the pattern of hair on his arms, feel the hard smoothnes of his shoulders beneath her hands as she held him close. With a pang, that shot straight to the emptiness in her heart, she could feel the soft hair behind his ears, where it curved ever so slightly, that it almost became a curl.

She suddenly got up and ran to the armoire. She pulled a wooden chest from below the carefully folded clothes, spilling them roughly and not caring. She fumbled with the latch and pulled out one of Arthur's red shirts. She inhaled. Yes, it still smelled of him. She held it to herself desperately, sinking her face in the beautiful fabric. She inhaled again and again; the pain shook her, like a dog with a toy, like bear with his hapless victim, but she didn't care. This little piece of Arthur was still there and her memories of him coalesced into this. His was an almost physical presence, but she knew she would never hold him again, never hear his voice. Never again would she feel safe, for the haven of his arms was gone forever. Hopelessly, she surrendered and let her grief possess her.

When her maid arrived an hour laer, she found the queen still there, on the floor clutching Arthur's shirt. She said nothing, for the queen had sat up with a start and was looking at her with a familiar, tender, sad expression. It was not the first time.

But the tears followed Guinevere all day. She moved through her schedule; talking to the weavers guild, receiving a report of a dam that needed repair in the northern section, reviewing the list of young men seeking to become a knight. But the tears prickled unaccountably behind her eyes, threatening to spill at any moment. Her heart pained her all day, the ache of Arthur's loss filled her with a now familiar bone deep lonliness. Some days were lke this, so much harder than others. She would get through this. She told herself this over and over as the day went by, but the tears would not leave her be.

Her eyes stung as she entered the Great Hall, to recieve petitions from the lower town of Camelot. It was one of Guinevere's most cherished tasks, as she knew most of the people, if not by name, by sight alone. She understood their concerns as no royal could have. Arthur had given her this duty not long after their marriage and her dimples appeared as she remembered telling Arthur of the comings and goings of his people. It had become their ritual on petition day, to drink a glass of wine as the sun set and she would tell him of the days petitions. It delighted Arthur that she always knew exactly what to do and that her solutions were always far more clever and practical than anything he would have thought of.

Her eyes prickled as a little girl offered her a bouquet of daisies. She clung shyly to her mother's side, who had come to report a rash of thefts from the miller's stores. The child had enormous dark eyes, that lit up as she handed the recently picked blossoms to the queen herself.

"Did you know these are my very favorite flowers?"

The child nodded in awe, looking up into the face of the Queen and in that moment, as she took the daisies, the silver glint of her ring caught the light beneath the edge of the blossoms. She remembered. Her heart began to thunder and the tears gushed suddenty from her eyes. Looking down at the startled child and her mother, she managed to choke out, "Thank you." She gulped down her tears. "Thank you, my child. I mean it, from the bottom of my heart." She kissed her fingers and set them on the head of the child briefly, almost like a blessing, and then turned and almost ran from the throne room.

She ignored the murmurs of her servants, ignored the voices that called to her as she ran to her chambers. Behind the safety of the door, she gave way to the tears that had wracked her all day. She sobbed helplessly, as if the pain that possessed her small frame tortured her. She was not startled when she heard the door open and the slow step of Gaius came through the door. She knew they would send for him.

"What kind of wife was I, Gaius," she gasped out without preamble.

"The only kind that Arthur ever would have wanted, " came the soft, sad reply. She looked up into the kind, tragic face beside her. She relaxed into his embrace as he put his arm around her shoulder and offered her a handkerchief. There was a crude "M" embroidered in the corner. She smiled briefly.

"Did Merlin do this", she asked in a more normal tone, even thugh she sniffed as she said it. She held the "M" up for inspection and the old man smiled.

"It was joke of sorts. He didn't want to use one of mine even after it had been washed. He said you couldn't tell where it might have been."

"Oh Gaius." There was no need to say anything more for a second, as they sat together. But Gwen's tears began again, and Gaius did not move but tightened his emrace briefly, as she rested her head on his shoulder.

"Today is our wedding anniversary." Her voice was small and broken as she looked up at the old physician. "And I forgot." She took a deep breath, even though the tears continued to slip down her face. "I don't even remember anything about our first anniversary because of the spell. And now this Gaius! What kind of wife was I? How could I forget? After everything that he meant to me, after everything we went through together. After all our dreams that will never come true". She paused in her agony, surrendering to the sobs that shook her. When at last she calmed a bit , she handed the bouquet of daisies to him. "I didn't remember until a little girl gave me these." She turned them in her hand, holding them briefly to her face. " Remember? At the wedding."

"Oh my dear" he said softly.

"I woke up crying, Gaius. But I didn't remember. I just didn't."

"Your mind can't bear to remember what your heart can't forget." said the old man slowly, and just as slowly, the pain in Guinevere's heart began to strengthen into courage as she wiped her tears away. Love is a mysterious thing.

June 16, 1989

"Parted from me, but never parted; always and never, touching and touched". Star Trek/Amok Time


End file.
